Icing on any exposed part of a wind turbine can occur and cause decreased performance of the wind turbine. Furthermore e.g. when ice is accumulated on one or more of the rotor blades of a wind turbine, excess vibration problems from uneven blade icing may occur. This in turn may generate excessive mechanical loads on the wind turbine components leading eventually to wind turbine shut-down or to wind turbine faults.
Hence, it is necessary to avoid ice or to remove ice located on wind turbine blades by a deicing system or by a heating system. In particular, it is known to use an electrical heating that is attached to an outer surfaces of the blade.
The heating is connected by electrical wiring to a power supply and to a control unit. The wiring is easy to be damaged by lightning strikes, because the conductors run along the outer surface of the blade to the location of the heating.
In particular, there is also a need to heat the tip ends of the blades, so that in conventional heating systems a conductor has to run from the tip end to the root end of the blade. In particular, in the region of the tip end of the blade, the risk is severe that the conductor running to the heating being hit by a lightning strike.